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The title of this post should probably be expanded to ‘Everything you (a white dude sometimes considered creepy but really just out for a good time) always wanted to know about Mexican girls’.
1. First things first, rest assured that as a foreigner, Mexican girls like you. You’re less likely to be poor, brown, macho, or still living under the apron of your mother. They will like you even more if you’re not from the US, or at least can act like you’re not from the US. Half of Mexico speaks with a yanqui accent. Scottish, Australian and Kiwi accents are highly valued (even if no one has any idea what you’re saying). Just keep talking. Talk marsupials, flightless birds, fens and vales, or anything else that Mexico doesn’t have in abundance. Even haggis is sort of exotic.
2. It may be better not to mention that you are a vegetarian, or have other weird dietary restrictions or habits. It’s cool that you’re not macho, but no one likes a eunuch either. And besides, what’s your Mexican girl going to feed you if you won’t touch tortas ahogadas, or whatever her signature dish is?
3. Every girl in every country in the world knows that visiting white boys are just after a very very meaningless fling to tell their buddies back home about. That doesn’t mean girls all over the world don’t forget this in the heat of the moment (sometimes deliberately), but it does mean that if you’re in a nightclub by yourself – and especially if you’re standing on the dance floor making very keen eye contact but not dancing – that the girls you are trying to rub up against will know EXACTLY what you’re about. And they probably won’t go for it. Probably.
4. You will not be the first gringo that this girl has spoken to. Partly this is because Mexico is crawling with gringos, partly it’s because gringos all seem intent on sleazing on Mexican girls. Either way, this girl has heard it all before; she’s probably heard it several times already on the day that you finally go up to her. So you might want to have a creative first line/opening gimmick on hand (something more than just being foreign). Don’t show her that you can juggle or mime or breathe fire; there’s a guy at every intersection in the country doing one of these. You might as well offer to clean her windshield (no that’s not some kind of double entendre – shame on you).
5. She speaks better English (and probably French or Germen) than you do Spanish. So you can be the gentleman that fumbles for words and makes her laugh with his incorrect conjugations and risks boring the lady, or you can talk in your thickest accent to try to bring her back down a few rungs (if you’re Scottish I guess you’re already doing this) thus reclaiming the linguistic upper hand, or you can ply her with compliments and ask where she learned to speak English (but see the above point about finding an ORIGINAL first line), or you can pedantically correct the few errors she does make, thus undermining her confidence, but bear in mind that she probably understands English grammar a lot better than you do.
Happy creeping…
(There is more to learn! Read part two!)
Despite the gradual rise in my Spanish level, conspicuous holes in my vocabulary remain. While I can fill my bag with the fresh and the green from the central market, in the eatery above the market the simmering pots and pans are filled with thing I have no name for.
In a purely gastronomical sense I have no need to know the names of these foods. I know enough to know they are meat-based, and that they are thus not for me.
Still, the longer I spend in Bolivia, the more the names of these forbidden foodstuffs begin to encroach into my vocabulary. One dish that has long lodged in my lexicon is Pique a lo Macho. Pique itself is a rather bland handful of French fries interspersed with hot dog meat and sold outside schools and on street corners all over the country. It becomes more interesting when it turns macho. Pique a lo Macho is a giant steaming mound of French fries, drowning in five types of meat (meat of sausage, meat of cow, meat of bird, meat of pig, and meat of other), eggs and a lot of chilli. It requires a big plate and a strong table to support it, and as such is not hit-and-run street food.
Since learning of this most unacceptable dish, I have longed to vegetarianise it. Just because I don’t eat meat doesn’t mean I don’t like big, greasy mounds of unhealthy food.
1. Get a lot of real big potaters and cut them with a real big knife into real big wedges. Boil the real big wedges for ten minutes, or until they’re soft (usually Big Phil won’t touch nothing soft, but in this case it’s necessary).
2. Boil some water and then soak some real big eggs in it. Set some water aside to soak some real big chunks of soy meat. Soak some real small chunks too until they’re good and sloppy.
3. Get a real big plate, a metal one (Big Phil likes metal). Put the real big potater wedges on the plate, coat in oil and salt, and bake until real hot and crispy.
4. While the real big potater wedges are baking, get a real big pan. Heat some oil in it until it’s real hot.
5. Dice a real big eggplant (everyone knows the biggest eggplants are in Bolivia) into real big cubes and put them in the real hot pan. Add a lot of salt.
6. Cut some onions into real big rings or half-rings. Dice a lot of real big cloves of garlic into real small pieces. Put them in the pan with the real big real hot eggplant.
7. Use your real big knife to cut up a real big head of broccoli. Cut up a real big red bell pepper/capsicum, and a real big green one too. Put them in the real big pan.
8. There aren’t many fresh mushrooms in Bolivia, and the tinned ones only come in real small tins. So open a tin or two of mushrooms, halve them, and put them in the real big pan, which should be real full.
9. Add the real big and real small soy meat. Peel and half the eggs and add them too.
10. Dice a couple of real hot locoto peppers. They’re hotter if you crush them a bit first. Crush them real good. Use different coloured peppers – Big Phil likes colourful food. Put them in the pan.
11. Add a lot of cilantro, cumin, vinegar, veggie stock, tomato paste, salsa ingles/Worcestershire sauce/HP sauce/BBQ sauce. Enough to coat all the real big veggies, without turning everything to slop (even though Big Phil likes slop, it isn’t the way for Pique a lo Macho).
12. Take the real big real hot potaters out of the oven. Pour the real big real spicy vegetable mix over the potaters. Add some grated cheese. Bake until cheese is melted.
13. Serve on the same real big plate, with real big bottles of mayonnaise, ketchup and hot sauce next to it.
14. Go at it with your real big hands. Use a real big fork if you’re dainty.
15. If it isn’t so spicy it hurts, then you did it wrong.
This week couchsurfing.com celebrated the registration of its one millionth member. This represents quite an achievement for a site that depends for its success upon the goodwill and good faith of people. The success and spread of couchsurfing across the globe (its million members and their couches are scattered across over two hundred countries. It is even possible to, for example, find a couch to stay on in Antarctica) seems to me to be a wonderful tonic to the general spread of consumptive, self-focused tourism.
I joined couchsurfing in 2006, as it was recovering from a near-fatal site crash, and as it was starting to enter the mainstream backpacker parlance. Now, two and a half years later, I almost never need to explain what couchsurfing is; I only need to drop the name and people understand what I am talking about.
Originally I had been sceptical of the project; when I first considered joining up I couldn’t see that anyway would want me in their home, and I wondered what nefarious purposes people might use the site for. I didn’t really begin to embrace the project until it occurred to me that most hostels were also full of people with un-hospitable and quite nefarious designs. A bathroom in a house is always cleaner than a hostel bathroom. I also had a few wonderful experiences getting started with CS in the Balkans. Although the concept of vegetarianism raised a few issues – and continues to do so quite often – I was met with overwhelming warmth and hospitality.
I really began to embrace CS when I travelled across the US. Between the nights on the greyhound and the nights on peoples’ couches, floors, spare beds and air mattresses I was able to experience a far broader spectrum of American life than I had anticipated. I knew what to expect in New York and California, but my favourite experiences came courtesy of the hospitality of friends and couchsurfers in such places as Ohio, Michigan, Alabama and Texas. There was no way I could have crossed the country on my budget, nor could I have seen half of what I had wanted to see if it hadn’t been for CS.
Thereafter I was well and truly hooked. During my year in Korea almost everyone I knew was a couchsurfer – either because I met them through CS or because I brought them into the CS fold. There have been occasions where things didn’t quite go as wanted; when, for example, a steak ended up on the plate before me, or a host became a little over-amorous, but these have been only the tiniest setbacks, and are a small price to pay for being given the opportunity to enter into the lives and homes of people all over the world, to see how they live, and to share with them food and tales.
Couchsurfing will no doubt continue to grow, as more of its million members start to try their luck with the kindness of strangers (currently although there are a million members of CS, there have only been some million and a half successful hostings. Given that I have stay with perhaps fifty people, and others have stayed with a lot more than me, it is clear that many CS members haven’t yet had then chance to stay with or to host people). It is an addictive thing, this meeting of and sharing with strangers, and it has utterly changed the way I travel. I’ve barely stayed in a dorm since signing up, and I see little reason ever to return to them. There are plenty of remote corners of the world that CS is yet to reach – there are not as many CSers in Bolivia as in its neighbouring countries, for example – but given its general purpose of connecting the people and fostering exchange, it seems inevitable that sooner or later there will be couches or floors or hammocks available pretty much anywhere that people care to visit.
After having immersed myself in the gringo volunteer community in Cochabamba, I’ve been able to observe the ways in which the average gringo interacts. In the interests of promoting cross-cultural exchange, I’ve compiled a list of safe conversation topics for anyone interested in engaging with a gringo.
1. How dull Bolivian food is. To create a point of common ground with a gringo, mention how tired you have become of your Bolivian diet of chicken, potatoes and rice. Generate sympathy for yourself while demonstrating your health-consciousness by mentioning that you wish less salt and oil were added to these staples. This works particularly well if the gringo you are engaging is a vegetarian. These are identifiable by their thin, pale, ungainly appearance.
2. How much of a cholita is clothing, and how much is human. Cholitas, the braided, hatted, traditionally-garbed indigenous women are a subject of fascination to gringos. The fascination stems from the fact that cholitas are simultaneously exotic and (generally) unattractive. Mentioning the disproportionately large butts of cholitas, and questioning how much of this bulk is layers of skirt, and how much is actual flesh, is guaranteed to generate much discussion among gringos. Raising the idea of dressing like or dating a cholita is a safe way to add humour to the discussion.
3. Your declining currency. If a gringo conversation is becoming lost in economic jargon, you can bring it back to a more manageable, understandable level by mentioning that the current economic climate has caused your currency’s exchange rate to plummet, and that this is destroying your savings, and forcing you to tighten your belt. You can demonstrate your helpfulness by quoting actual, current exchange rates. This is a particular useful for topic for engaging Australian gringos.
4. How slow Bolivian internet connections are. If you encounter a flustered gringo, it is probable that they have just come from an internet café, or have been stealing wi-fi. Sympathise with them by quoting how many minutes it took you to send a single email, or to open facebook. Lament with them how long it takes to download music and sitcoms. To demonstrate that you have not lost perspective, follow this with an ironic comment about how little most Bolivians have, and that all you can complain about is the internet speed. Follow this with an embarrassed laugh.
5. Which graduate program or career path your volunteer work is qualifying you for. To show your sensitivity, this topic should be prefaced by ‘I really just want to help, but…’. Having done so you will be free to comment on how inefficient many Bolivian NGOs are, but how your perserverance and hard-earned successes will help you qualify for the graduate program or career in international relations that you intend to commence once you return to your home country.
